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November 14, 2007

"High in a tower she sits by the hour, maintaining her hair..."

I'm halfway through my National Novel Writing Month project and I am pretty miserable about it. Naturally, I share this with you.

I read a lot of reconstituted fairy tales and thought it might be fun to do a re-telling of Rapunzel. 32 pages in, I'm realizing that the reason no one ever rewrites the Rapunzel story is that she spends many years trapped in a tower and nothing happens to her.

Well, they do say to write what you know, I think to myself, staring out my apartment windows at the big old world going by outside.

So there's my crappy plot to deal with. On top of that, the initial ease of prose flow in the first week made me all cocky and I stopped writing for three days, not realizing that by the time I caught up with myself I'd be reduced to describing every piece of fabric in this goddamn boring tower room where nothing ever happens to her. So now I am roughly 5000 words behind my quota.

On top of all this, I have written just about every cliche I know into this story, every sentence clatters and clonks like I'm shaking a box full of blocks, and my character is supposed to be a tomboy but turns out to be a big boring bookworm with nothing to say for herself, just like me.

On the plus side, I gather this is how I'm supposed to feel halfway through the month, so. Yay for me.

Posted by didofoot at November 14, 2007 03:31 PM

Comments

giggle. i'm sorry you are miserable. i too know the pain of not writing for 3 days. only mine were at the beginning of the month due to nephew birthing and now there's just really no hope. i did put up a sample of mine though! you should put up some of yours too. i don't care how boring you think it is, i am still intrigued by the boredom, madness, escape plot.

maybe we could have a write-in on saturday. only i might be super exhausted from class. possibly we could hop me up on sugar.

Posted by: michele at November 14, 2007 07:44 PM

I wrote jokes instead, Molly visited, and there was also drinking. I also pretty much had an idea for about a ten-page story, not a real novel. Novel Writing Month is a bust for this guy right here, no matter how much email encouragement I get from Sue Grafton.

Posted by: sean at November 15, 2007 01:58 AM

What you can do is, you can say one character is going to tell a story and then start a whole new novel under that guise. Which I might do, except how can Rapunzel know a story set in modern-day SF? Then again, why do I care? Stupid useless character.

I'm up for a write-in on Saturday. Or a trip to Amoeba/Green Apple to sell some stuff. =)

Posted by: didofoot at November 15, 2007 08:59 AM

seriously.

i liked this week's though! sara gruen! she wrote a nano and got it published after all and "water for elephants" is really good. and the naomi novik one. man, her books are horrible but SOOOOOO addictive. stupid dragon corps. how many pages of description of an aerial battle do i really need after all? novik thinks at least 50. maybe 100. she could write a whole nano about dragon rights. and yet her books keep me RIVETED. it's like her prose is laced with heroin.

Posted by: michele at November 15, 2007 09:03 AM

Is that "seriously, stupid useless character" or "seriously, let's sell things"?

Posted by: didofoot at November 15, 2007 10:40 AM

that was actually "seriously, sue grafton sucks" and was aimed at sean because we commented close to the same time and i hadn't even seen yours.

but yeah, saturday. i'll be there around...1:30/2 after class in san jose.

i did just sell stuff at half price this week so i am kind of out of stuff. but i'm sure i could purge my to-be-read shelves some more. and anyway i need to find some books for christmas presents for family at used book stores.

btw, HPB is having this thing next friday where the first 100 people in the store get $5 GCs and one person will win $200. only it starts at 7am. but still potential $200 may make it worth going.

Posted by: michele at November 15, 2007 12:46 PM

Cool, come by on Saturday and we'll go selling and maybe do some writing.

And heh. I have made it a point of pride to stay out of stores on Black Friday or whatever they call it. But that is the only offer that has ever tempted me. 7:00 am though...no, I will pass.

Posted by: didofoot at November 15, 2007 01:33 PM

I know I'm really late to the game here, but have you considered having a laugh at your readers' expense? You could write an epic describing the bricks in the tower, and then take 5-6 lines describing the escape.

Have I ever told you about the time I met a guy with an orange for a head? Let me know when you have a few hours. It's a great story.

Posted by: Danny Dawson at November 29, 2007 05:18 PM

Whew, orange I glad you didn't say banana!

Posted by: didofoot at November 30, 2007 08:25 AM

I've decided to totally rework the premise of my novel. I don't want to give too much away, but it involves a young man who has a traumatic experience at the circus, and then devotes his whole life to getting back at the clown who victimized him.

Posted by: sean at November 30, 2007 12:16 PM

Ha! I was just thinking a few days ago, next time I come to one of your shows I should yell repeated drunken requests for the clown joke and the red 2x4 story. Because that would be the action of a friend.

Posted by: didofoot at November 30, 2007 12:38 PM

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